Trump may be the issue, but Democrats should still not campaign on him

Rahm Emanuel, current Mayor of Chicago, former Democratic Congressman, and legendary political organizer recently said that “Trump is the issue...”

Emanuel, as usual, is right. To most voters, Trump is the issue. He has determined the landscape upon which this midterm campaign will be waged. His personal unpopularity and controversial policies and erratic behavior mean that what should be a great year for Republicans — with the economy booming and all — might well be a wipeout.

Driven by their seething white hot hatred of Trump, Democratic activists encourage Congressional candidates to emphasize their opposition to the President and to commit to vote in favor of impeachment. Many of these activists are outraged at the position of the Democratic leadership that candidates should avoid the impeachment issue, and instead focus on pocketbook issues that matter to their constituents.

The problem is that running a campaign on Trump is not much of a campaign. As one of my political mentors once said, “politics is a game of addition, not of subtraction.” Pretty much everyone has made up their mind about Trump. As Rick Bloomingdale of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO said, “People don’t want to hear you tell them how bad Trump is. They either know or they don’t care.”